Curriculum Matters

Or maybe a meat cleaver ... depends on how you look it at. Florida's governing body for high school athletics approved cutting 20 percent of varsity contests and 40 percent for nonvarsity sports, in response to budget shortfalls. All sports, except the all-mighty—football—will be affected. For those wondering why football was spared, I believe it's because football traditionally brings in revenue, enough to support other sports. At least that's the reasoning that was given to me by Roger Dearing of the Florida High School Athletic Association, when I interviewed him for a story last month on cuts to sports programs around the country. Across-the-board reductions to sports, while painful, at least make it easier for districts to work together to schedule games and save travel costs, he told me.

A number of athletic directors and administrators I interviewed for that story were worried about entire sports being eliminated outright, and about how it would affect students, particularly those from troubled or disadvantaged backgrounds. Sports keeps students engaged in school, they argued. (I would love to see more research on that, by the way, if someone can point me to it.) The Florida association's decision is an alternative to that dire option. I would assume that schools will stage fewer games and more practices and intrasquad matches. Not as much fun for the athletes, to be sure, but more appealing than seeing their seasons canceled.

How do the sports cuts in your districts compare with what's taking place in Florida?

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Can a kickball game help transform the climate of a school?

That playground activity and other informal “classic games,” such as four-square and tag, can promote student health, as well as improved classroom behavior and learning, some health advocates say.

Just last fall, a major effort aimed at expanding access to those activities, during recess and afterschool was launched with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., awarded a four-year, $18.7 million grant to Sports4Kids, an Oakland, Calif., nonprofit, to train adult “coaches” who can supervise and encourage recess and after-school activities.

Sports4Kids’ efforts in that area will grow from five cities to 27 cities, said Jill Vialet, the president and founder of Sports4Kids.The funding will also allow the organization to broaden its training of teachers, parks and recreation works and other adults in supervising and encouraging healthy games, as well as its general advocacy for healthy games, Vialet told me.

Many educators and advocates have argued that recess and student free-time is being squeezed from the school day—and that children are suffering for it.

A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics, by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, found that 8-9 year-olds provided a break of at least 15 minutes during the school day saw improvements in their learning, social development and health. The principal investigator on the study was Romina Barros, an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Einstein.

Some say the benefits of informal games are often overlooked because they lack the official structure of adult-led leagues and school sporting events. Yet “there is a structure to it—it’s just that kids have control over it,” Vialet argued. “There’s a lot of social and emotional learning that happens in that context."

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Is there any obligation for a school sports team to ease up on an opponent, when one side is so outmatched that the event devolves in a blowout that's embarrassing to just about everybody involved? Should athletic associations set up rules to prevent this from taking place?

Those questions leap to mind in the wake of a much-publicized beat-down delivered by the girls basketball team from Covenant School, a Christian school in Texas, to the team from Dallas Academy, on Jan. 13.

Even by the standards of high school basketball, where talent mismatches are common, this score was pretty stunning: 100-0, Covenant. As you might have guessed, that final score brought repercussions, according to this story in the Associated Press.

According to the story, Covenant coach Micah Grimes was fired a few weeks after the game, apparently for letting things get out of hand. This related article says the losing side was so badly outmatched that team members were having trouble bringing the ball up court, committing turnovers that turned the game into a virtual lay-up drill for Covenant.

Not long after the game, Covenant's headmaster and board chairman issued the following statement: "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition."

Coach Grimes responded to the criticism by defending his decisions in an e-mail to a newspaper. "I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. ... We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

Grimes was fired not long after issuing that statement, according to the story.

Some state athletic associations have set regulations to reduce the chances of massive blowouts, guidelines commonly known as "mercy" rules. I know of them in basketball, and particularly football, where I believe the thinking is that if one side is so dominant, there's a good chance someone is going to be seriously hurt. Texas does not have a mercy rule in girls basketball, according to the story.

The value of mercy rules, and the rules about when to let up against an overmatched opponent, tend to rouse strong opinions in the sports world, in my experience. For a lot of us, the benefit of mercy rules is obvious: Why allow athletes, particularly teenagers or preteens, to be humiliated by a huge loss? Common mercy rules include letting the clock run without interruption during blowouts or shortening the game. If participating in sports is supposed to teach students lessons, what lessons are to be gained from, say, a 75-7 loss on the gridiron?

The other view, as I've heard it expressed, goes like this (I am drawing from my prodigious memory of sports-radio discussions here): Athletics are supposed to mirror life and to challenge participants in unpredictable and sometimes unpleasant ways. There's a lesson to be learned in an athletic blowout, according to this line of thinking: If you are unprepared or simply overmatched in sports, as in life, you will be embarrassed. Most athletes face an opponent who is far more talented, the argument goes, and learning to compete against that rival, without fear or the expectation of mercy, is part of what sports is about. I don't know how many people would support the Covenant coach in this situation. But I know that some people (I've heard them) argue that teams should not ease up on a struggling opponent; to do so is anti-competitive, they say.

Looking to professional and college sports doesn't lend much clarity here. Coaches and players periodically object to being "shown up" by an opponent who runs up the score, but those extreme drubbings go on, year after year. Of course, in those situations, athletes often settle those disputes through what amounts to street justice, by exacting revenge through cheap play or simply blowing out that opponent, if ever the tables should turn.

In high school athletics, what rules should apply?

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